The early season loss posts are useless. It does however let us reading your post know that you aren't up to times in today's game.It ain't one bad year. He has earned no free pass. He gets paid to produce. The last 6 years he is winning at a 73% pace. That is only above Sutton and BCG. The Cal that came to UK left after his title and HOF.
The last 6 years is plenty of enough data to see that Cal has declined in recruiting and winning.
I don't want Stevens or Donovan. Never have. Never have even considered them. Cal lost his drive and fire.
You can most definitely have a program that you wish for. Recruit 3-4 year players that can't play as freshmen. Have a team that you get to know and learn about. Once every 3-4 years have a team that's capable of making a run in march and probably gets ya an elite 8 worst case scenario. That team looks alot like tennessee, Virginia, texas tech. If that's what you want fine, there's nothing wrong with that.
To be one of the teams that consistently has a chance to make a run every season you have to do things differently. Recruit more athletic kids with hopes you can refine their game in 3 months. Don't get caught up in wins early on if it is to the detriment of your players learning what it takes to be good in march. Uk has proven that it has a different approach and it works. 9 tournaments in and 7 elite 8's.